


Fall Apart

by uarejeff



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bullying, Canon Compliant, Comparisons between Nora's life and Barry's, Depression, Gen, Getting powers, Growing Up, Loss, Nora's Life, Parental Death, Self Harm, This was an experiment, kinda angsty ngl, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 03:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21469597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uarejeff/pseuds/uarejeff
Summary: “Oh, Nora.” Papa Joe swallows roughly. “I know baby. I want your dad, too.”Or: a comparison between Nora and Barry's lives
Relationships: Barry Allen & Iris West, Barry Allen & Joe West, Caitlin Snow & Nora West-Allen, Cecile Horton & Nora West Allen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Fall Apart

Nora hates the police station. It’s cold, and wet, and there isn’t anything fun to play with. Not that she feels like playing.

A man, she doesn’t remember his name, is talking to Papa Joe, hugging him.

“I’m so, so sorry, Joe,” he says, and Nora feels like she’s eavesdropping so she focuses on her shoelace, untied. She swings her leg up and down to make it drag along the concrete floor, and tries to ignore the chewed gum stuck to the bench next to her. 

——

Barry hates the police station. It’s cold, and wet, and there isn’t any place he can be alone. He scrubs at his face roughly, trying to wipe away the tears. 

Someone is talking to Mr. West (his dad won’t let Barry call him “Joe”), and giving him a firm hug.  “I’m sorry, Joe. I know how close you were to them,” he says, and Barry stops listening. 

His mom  _ isn’t _ dead. She isn’t. She can’t be. She’s his  _ mom, _ she can’t just be alive one second and gone the next.  _ It doesn’t work like that. _ And once they talk to Dad, they’ll know that, and everything will be fine, and they’ll all go home together and tuck Barry into bed, and the police will catch the man in the lightning.

They will. He’s certain. 

——

“Nora, sweetie?” Papa Joe says, kneeling down in front of her. “You’re going to come stay with me and Mama Cecile for a while. Is that okay?”

——

“Bare, honey?” Mr. West says, squatting down in front of him. “You’re going to come stay with me and Iris for a bit. Is that okay?”

——

“I want my—”

——

“—Mom!”

——

“Oh, Nora.” Papa Joe swallows roughly. “I know baby. I want your dad, too.”

Three weeks later, Iris and Nora go back to the loft. Iris starts crying when she sees an old sweater of Dad’s, and Nora wraps her arms around her mother and says it’s going to be alright. 

——

Three weeks later, Barry is still at Joe’s. (Joe insisted he call him by his first name.) He wets the bed again, dreaming of blurred faces and men in lightning and liquid that likes to float. 

Joe changes the sheets for the fourth time this week and murmurs something about getting a new mattress and wraps his arms around Barry. 

——

_ It’s going to be alright, _ Nora overhears Papa Joe say to Mom. 

——

Joe lets Barry sleep in his bed that night.

——

Five weeks later, Nora runs away to the Flash Museum. 

_ (“Your dad,”  _ Mom had said,  _ “Your dad was the Flash’s biggest fan.”) _

She imagines she finds him, standing among the exhibits. He’ll smile at her, pick her up and spin her around, comment on how big she’s gotten. 

“See!” she’ll say. “See, he’s right here!”

She gets all the way to the Hall of Villains before Mom finds her. She’s crying, clinging to Nora. 

“Don’t you ever,  _ ever _ run away again.  _ Ever.” _ Mom’s shaking her, almost like she’s trying to forcibly implant the message into Nora’s head. 

“Sorry, Mom,” Nora says, even though she isn’t, and she can’t help but be angry at her because she’s there and Dad isn’t.

——

Five weeks later, Barry tries to run away. Well, not  _ away, _ but  _ to. _ Iron Heights, specifically.

He imagines he finds Dad, all bruised from the guards beating him, and he’ll swoop in and save him. And everyone will realize that the man in the lightning did it, not his Dad.

“See!” he’ll say. “See, I told you!”

He gets four blocks before he’s picked up by a police cruiser. 

“What were you thinking?” Joe demands, looking shaken and scared and just a bit angry.

“Sorry, Joe,” Barry says, and doesn’t really mean it.

Joe starts to take him to therapy.

——

A year passes. School starts again. It’s boring and the kids—

——

—are cruel. 

“What are you going to do?” The boy taunts when Barry tells him to leave him alone. “Kill me?”

——

“I didn’t mean to punch him,” Nora insists.

“Well, what did you mean to do then?” Mom asks, raising an eyebrow.

——

Joe takes Barry to get ice cream even though he’s suspended. 

“You can’t let those kids get to you,” he says. 

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Barry says. He isn’t certain whether he means it or not. 

——

“I know, baby,” Mom says. “I know.”

——

A year and four months pass. The kids beat up Barry again, shove him down to the sidewalk and kick him until he vomits. 

——

_ Working late, _ the note on the table reads.  _ Help yourself to the mac and cheese in the fridge.  _

Nora presses an ice pack to her bruised ribs instead and tries not to cry. 

——

Iris is at a sleepover, and Joe is working late (it still scares him, the idea that he might lose another parent).

It’s for the best, he supposes. 

——

She doesn’t want to worry them. 

——

Middle school, highschool, and college pass. And it’s funny, because even though he’s been through years and years of therapy, heard  _ it wasn’t your fault _ a million different ways—

——

—no one’s ever tried to explain why—

——

—he feels—

——

—so numb. 

——

Iris finds the scars when she walks in on Barry changing, and he begs her not to tell Joe. 

——

“It’ll break her,” Nora begs, clutching Caitlin’s hand.  _ “Please  _ don’t tell Mom.”

——

_ “Please.” _

——

“Fine,” Caitlin says. “But you have to get help.”

——

“Okay,” Barry agrees. He never sets up the therapy appointment. It’s not that he wants to stay like this. It’s more that he’s been like this—

——

_ (empty) _

——

—for so long that he wouldn’t know what to do when he’s not. 

——

Nora becomes a CSI. Partially because her dad was, and because—

——

He hopes helping people will help him feel again. 

——

And then—

——

—there’s—

——

_ —lightning. _

——

It’s funny, Barry thinks. How he has to die in order to be reborn.

——

It’s funny, Nora thinks. How the ice in her stomach was replaced with fire, how in order to pick herself up, everything—

——

—had to—

——

—fall apart. 


End file.
